The inability to stay focused

I have self diagnosed myself with this awful thing.

The inability to stay focused.

Now those of you who know me...are shocked...I am sure.

Okay, not so much.  I do feel like staying focused is a daily battle for me.  And I am talking about everything in my life.  Coach joked with me the other night when I pulled the bread sticks out of the over because they weren't black.  "Don't you want to stick those back in until you "almost" burn them?" 

Ha...Ha...Ha.

He's right though.  I pretty much burn everything I ever try to bake...because I lose focus.  To answer your question...yes, I set the timer.  But that little beeping noise means nothing to me if I am working on something else.  Sometimes I don't even hear Little yelling Mom at the top of his lungs.  I am very good at tuning things out.  Not so much good at focusing.

Last week, I lost focus yet again.  But not on bread.  Not on the baseball game.  On my relationship with God.  Have you ever had those times?  Man...I did.  Everything...and I mean EVERYTHING got under my skin.  And when God sent specific people into my life to help...I chose to turn the other way.  I didn't want to hear it.  I wanted to have a bad week...and be ugly...and not be judged for it. 

Sometimes when Middle gets in trouble for things that he chose to do...he gets angry.  Even when I approach him after the fact to talk with him...I get "LEAVE ME ALONE!  I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE!" 

I get that.  Let me just say that he totally gets that from me.  The second I do something wrong, I go into ugly mode and want to be left alone.  Being alone I can sit and baby myself for being upset.  If someone comes to "talk" about my poor choices, I am forced to face the wrong doings that I chose to do.  Ugh.

That was me...all last week. 

And to be honest, I didn't want to get up and go to church yesterday.

But...I am so glad I did.

The message was about throwing yourself into God's work. 

I kind of felt like this message was written specifically for my ears to hear.

PR made a list of things that keep us doing God's work.

Fear...
Insecurity...(ouch)
Loss of focus...(uhm, what were we talking about?)
Jealousy...(BUSTED)

And then he left the space blank.  ___________ causes me to drift.

I feel like PR pretty much hit the nail on the head with his painful words, but I am sure I could come up with others. 

He then went on to say (paraphrase) that we live in a microwave society where we need instant gratification to measure our success.  If we don't see instant results, we feel like our actions are a failure.  A lot of times, I'll lose focus waiting to see the result of good works.

Interestingly enough...he also said (paraphrase) that in doing God's work, we may not always see the results of our actions.    That doesn't mean we aren't successful.  Some plant the seed, some water the seed...and some get to see the seed grow.  There are situations where we get to be a part of all three...but sometimes, just planting the seed is the work we've been put here to do. 

Wow.

Alrighty.

New focus.  Doing God's work without losing focus and finding a way to remeasure the success of doing HIS work. 

The reward = fulfillment in having a relationship with Christ.  Not fulfillment from being able to see the final result of doing His work. 

Food for thought.  Now...if I can just stay focused long enough to really think about all of it!

Have a blessed day!
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